RECENT NEWS ARTICLES

This page contains a selection of recent news articles and commentary about male victims of violence and abuse plus related issues. These articles are presented as a community service, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the One in Three Campaign.

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Male victims of family violence are being ignored because it goes against radical feminist ideology which places the blame on men, a victims' group says.

"Men are largely, if not completely, dismissed as victims of family violence, and not offered the same level of support as a female victim solely based upon their gender," The Forgotten Victims of Family Violence has written in a submission published on Wednesday.

The association of mostly separated fathers says there are many myths about family violence linked to "the radical feminist paradigm of family violence" which they say ignores the high number of women who hurt children.

In its submission to Victoria's Royal Commission into Family Violence the group asks the inquiry to address the role of female perpetrators of domestic violence.

The group also recommends there be no reintroduction of defensive homicide laws.

"The presumption that female violence against men is a response to male violence is ... without any basis," it said.

There were roughly the same number of male and female victims of family homicide in Victoria in the decade to 2010, the group says.

But it notes that 71 per cent of victims killed by a partner were female, while the majority of victims in other family homicides were male.

The royal commission into domestic violence has replayed many received wisdoms. But there are certain things that cannot be said.

Two days before Christmas, the freshly anointed premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, announced the establishment of a royal commission on family violence. “The whole system is broken,” he said. “It doesn’t protect the vulnerable, it doesn’t punish the guilty and more of the same policies will only mean more of the same tragedies.” Andrews pledged to adopt all of the commission’s eventual recommendations.

The issue – preposterous in scale – was finally receiving an almost proportionate political attention. Rosie Batty would be named Australian of the Year the following month. Newspapers were devoting front pages to murdered mothers. It was tempting to consider the wave of public sentiment cresting. The issue of family violence had long been complacently dismissed – the problem, always, of “others”. But this felt different.

This was the commission’s third and penultimate week. Each day had been devoted to a new theme – intervention orders, drugs, financial vulnerability. Consulting the various submissions, it is obvious that the sector comprises competing philosophies and personalities – police, academics, counsellors, clinicians, volunteers.

But as I watch the polite examinations of professionals, I also watch the fissure lines vanish. The politics is rendered invisible. And not for the first time I wonder if family violence is an issue that both benefits and suffers from its enhanced publicity.

One in three victims of family violence is male but there is reportedly little help or support from the government for male victims of domestic violence.

Jasmin Newman, a specialist men’s coach from Relating To Men, believes the current situation for male victims of domestic violence is desperate, according to Channel 9's A Current Affair program.

'There's no shelters, there's no counseling, there's no services available to them, we provide government funding services for woman but we're not providing government funding services for men,' she told the programme.

One alleged male victim of domestic violence, Simon Lanham, says he was on the brink of death when his ex-partner stabbed him five times. He now has a long scar through the centre of his abdomen after the operation needed to save his life.

'It wasn't the first time she'd attacked me with a knife but she'd always come at me when I could see her coming, so I could stop her but it was dark and she got me from behind,' he said in recounting his version of events.

In another incident, Mr Lanham was allegedly goaded into retaliating and trading blows with his former partner.

'It took her [his ex-partner] 12 hours from when she wanted me to hit her from when I actually hit her...I probably got punched in the head about 50 times I got spat in the face about a dozen times, grabbed in the testicles and grabbed to the ground half a dozen times and got kicked, eventually she cornered me and got my face before I hit her,' he said.

Phil Hunt who was also allegedly a victim to his wife's rages said he didn't retaliate when she became violent because it felt wrong but if the situations were reversed he would likely be in jail.

'There was things thrown at me like pots and glasses and I remember one night she threw like a ceramic vase type thing at me, it just shattered on the wall. She threw it that hard, lucky I dodged it,' he alleged.

Even though they might seek help, male victims are not being taken seriously.

Mr Hunt alleged that he reported the incident to police, but he was dismissed.

'She basically told me just man up and deal with the problem because my ex was quite small... she sort of looked as though, how could she do any damage to you,' he alleged.

According to One in Three, a website in support of male victims, implies the gender-based campaigns that always refer to woman as victims of domestic violence 'suggest that men are the only perpetrators of family violence and women and children the only victims.'

In order to carry out our aim of raising public awareness of the existence and needs of male victims of family violence, the One in Three Campaign encourages all media, whether mainstream media, websites, blogs or social media, to widely share our material with attribution. However, use of our material by any third party is not a sign of endorsement or affiliation between that party and One in Three. In order to carry out our aim of working with governments to provide better assistance to those affected by family violence, the One in Three Campaign works actively with all sides of the political spectrum but is unaffiliated with any political party or position.